


Trapped

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-01
Updated: 2018-02-01
Packaged: 2019-03-12 03:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13539168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: Anne goes to fetch Concorde for the dressage competition, but there is someone else waiting in his stall...





	Trapped

Concorde hadn’t spoken to Anne in a while. Normally, this would make the young woman worry, for her horse was always willing to chat with her, at least through their mental bond. Lately, however, he had been utterly silent. But, Anne thought as she chewed on her lip and then immediately stopped upon tasting her waxy lipstick, perhaps that could simply be put down to him being tired after last night.

It had killed her, to argue with Alex like that. Even now, tears sprang to Anne’s eyes, threatening to ruin her makeup again, as she thought of the late night phonecall that had rattled her worse than any tabloids. Alex had been in tears even when she’d picked up the phone, telling Anne that Linda had seen a vision and to please come home and not go to France. Anne had told her, in no uncertain terms, that she was already in France so it was too late, and that she wasn’t about to turn around and fly home in the middle of the night just because Linda had studied too long and had started hallucinating. She still felt that way now, though she wished that she hadn’t spoken to Alex like that. Hadn’t yelled at her, argued against Alex’s beliefs, implied that she was crazy for believing in all of that nonsense. Linda might have the Moon Circle Sight ability, but she didn’t know everything. And the future could change, maybe if she went home, she’d still end up in trouble. The plane might crash, or the airport might be attacked, or her taxi might crash on the way to the airport. No, Anne was determined to go through with this. It had been her dream for so many years now, and she wasn’t about to let some psychic warning get in the way of it. If Dark Core tried something again, she’d make them pay.

Besides, Concorde’s silence might have nothing to do with any of this. He might just be tired from being up half the night, consoling his weeping Soul Rider. Anne couldn’t blame him, she was still tired herself. So she smiled as she rounded the corner in the stables and approached the stall where Concorde was being kept before the competiton.

“Concorde, my dear, rise and shine~”, Anne trilled as she opened his stall door, having already grabbed his tack from the tack room on her way in. “Today’s the day of the big competition, and we can’t be late for our performance.” Still silence, and, when Anne checked her bond with her horse, she found that she couldn’t even feel him. Now, her heartrate spiked. Was he already out there? Had he fallen ill? “Concorde?”

Concorde’s stall was unnaturally dark, but that wasn’t too unusual. The stalls here had electric lights in them, so dismissing the darkness was as simple as reaching out and flicking the light switch on. But there was no sudden flash of light illumating the stall. Anne frowned as she flicked the switch again. Perhaps the bulb had blown?

“Well, I will have to have a talk with the people in charge of this place,” said Anne with a huff as she reached into her coat pocket and pulled out her mobile phone. Pressing a button, she slid her thumb across the screen and tapped in her passcode to open it, never stopping to wonder why the darkness in this stall was so complete when the corridor was so well-lit in comparison.

When Anne shone her phone into the darkness inside the stable, she screamed and the evil, dark-shrouded woman standing in the darkness grinned, her teeth pure white with elongated canines while her green eyes blazed brightly.

“Hello, princess,” said the young woman, and Anne was startled to find her feet moving into the stall without her permission. She tried to move backwards, tried to run, but her legs were frozen. She could barely breathe, but that, she knew, was panic.

“Where’s Concorde?” asked Anne once she finally managed to convince her tongue to move, to form words. Jess smirked, and Anne would have jumped if she could have moved when the stall door suddenly swung shut behind her.

“Oh, he’s… not here,” said Jess, checking her nails. “But we have a little score to settle, you and I.” Putting her hand down, she glared at Anne, and Anne had never felt more terrified in her life, not even when Concorde had first been injured.

“What did you do to my horse, you bitch?” asked Anne, her voice filled with more bravery than she felt at the moment. Why had she left her rune wand at home, why hadn’t she trained? She’d only ever gone to a few training sessions with Alex, never on her own. She’d always had far more important things to do. But if she couldn’t use her magic, she still had her fists. And her determination.

“Well, I was going to finish what I tried to do a while ago, but, alas, I had a… better offer,” said Jess. Anne noticed that the room was getting brighter, so that she didn’t need her phone anymore. And was that exhaustion making Jessica’s gaze look just a little glassy?

“You’re too weak, you mean,” said Anne with a chuckle. “I’m glad I hurt you.” Jessica’s eyes blazed with fury, and she growled, a chill suddenly seeping into the room.

“You have no idea what you put me through!” Jess screamed at her, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “The pain, the weakness, the torture!”

“Good,” said Anne. “You deserved it, after what you did to Concorde.”

“Oh yeah? Then you deserve this,” said Jess, and threw her hand out, an obsidian blade cleaving through the air. Pink light poured through, and Anne was immediately brought to her knees by the crushing waves of sickness. Her stomach tried to rebel, but she kept it down, not wanting to ruin her good outfit. Instead, she got to her feet, her legs and hands shaking. But she glared at Jess, who looked equally weakened. The slit in the fabric of the world still poured out pink light, and Jess panted as she reached her hand out and tore the slit into a hole, one large enough to let anything through. Including, say, a human girl. Anne recoiled from the rift, her heart pounding, gagging on the bile that rose up her throat.

“How nice of you to provide your own exit,” said Anne, and lunged for Jessica, meaning to push the weakened girl through the hole. But Jess still had some strength left in her. Frowning, she stepped aside, letting Anne stumble past her. Anne managed to stop herself before she fell through, turning to face Jessica, ignoring the sickening tug of the portal at her back. Blue eyes met green for one frightening moment before Jess stepped forward, her fist raised, and directed an uppercut to Anne’s chin so that the Sun stumbled backwards and fell through the portal into another world.

Closing the rift used the last of Jessica’s waning strength, and she collapsed amid the hay, groaning, her eyes closing. She really didn’t want to sleep among the smells of horses and their leavings, but she had no choice.

On opposite sides of the thin wall between the real world and Pandoria, two young women lay senseless, one surrounded by pink, the other lit only by the weak glow of a failing lightbulb.


End file.
